


the adult who stands at the top of the tower

by Celestos (Seruspica)



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Adulthood, Angst, Brotherhood, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-09-02 16:31:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8674621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seruspica/pseuds/Celestos
Summary: The clock is ticking. He is not a child any more. A short look at Reiji, written for YGOME.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rose_Bride](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rose_Bride/gifts).



> Holy wow this is way later than I expected. This is what happens when October and November are clusterfucks of deadlines and THEN you decide you're doing NaNoWriMo.
> 
> First time writing Reiji. Kind of inspired by the fact that I forget that he's meant to be 16, because to me he seems so much older...
> 
> The original prompt for my YGOME was indeed for the Akaba brothers, on 'childhood gone by'. So, yeah.

The clock is ticking.

Reiji sighs. His eyes drift to the sight of milk as it swirls in his coffee, dyeing the void a creamy, pale beige. 

His mother had complained at him once, seeing him with a hot cup of black in his hands; too large, too overfilled, too devoid of flavour. She had told him it was no good to be staying up so late, drinking so much that it made him feel sick, not when he had the corporation resting on his shoulders and Reira watching with wide eyes from afar. 

He is an adult. He had been an adult already back then.

He had sighed at her, telling her to leave him alone. She had tried to say something back, most likely to scorn him, or tell him that he was her son, and that he had to listen - but she had said nothing in the end, and had only left the room without so much as a word.

He had tried to finish the coffee, but passed out before the cup was half empty. By the time he woke up, it was morning. The coffee had cooled. His whole body ached.

His mother is not here - _not now_ , he thinks. He has space and time to himself, just for now.

He sighs. This time, the cup is much smaller; still warm. There is milk. Some part of it still tastes pleasant, even if the heat of it burns his tongue, and he drinks it regardless. It isn’t a good day. It’s cold in his office - his father’s office, still - he thinks, and today his chair feels a little too big. He thinks of putting on layers, but shakes his head at the thought. It doesn’t matter. It comes in the way of business, and he has no time for a break.

The pile of papers in front of him stares back, menacing. The phone is silent, but he knows it will ring any moment. The clock will tick closer to operating time, and then Leo Corporation will wake up, and he will not rest. There is no time for it.

The coffee has left his tongue aching. He continues to drink. Outside, it is barely past dawn. Maiami’s cityscape towers, rising and falling as his eyes run past the docks and the financial district, onwards through the arena and back to more skyscrapers. There are flashes of green on the ground and blue on the city itself, stone and glass standing stark in the grey of the coming light.

A clock ticks on in the background. Work will start soon. He has piles of paperwork to sift through, meetings to chair, voices to hear. Perhaps, in a spare moment or two, he will turn back to his report on the dimensions - but Leo Corporation precedes. He is a businessman; a governor, a man of a thousand contracts and the head of his business. He is the business itself - he is an adult. He stands, and sits firm, and those around him know that.

Those who forget should not be forgiven, his mother had said. He had the power to give and dismiss. The chair and the desk were his throne; his pens and staring eyes the symbols of power.

He is a man, above all others at Leo. He is their sole king and governor.

He is an adult.

He will work hard today - he knows it, determines it with his own hands and eyes. He sees and knows all underneath him. If his father was enough of a man to enslave his own army, then, Reiji too would be a man, one with his own force to stand with his side and rage forth into battle.

He is a commander. He is an adult.

He does not have much time. Soon, time will come, and his time will come to an end. He sighs. The championships close in. With them have come whispers, sightings - worse still, his own encounters. Maiami has not been quiet - and will not be again, he knows. All is beneath him as he perches above, gazing down with a glance at the glass and stone of Maiami: his city, his family’s money flowing through its veins and making new currents. Leo Corporation is its life and its blood, and he will make sure of it.

He is an adult. He will fight for his time.

The coffee disgusts him. Reiji shakes his head. Too much milk for his tastes. He thinks that he will ask for another, with less in this time, or make it himself. His staff struggle - he knows that, but the coffee is necessary, a fundamental part of his rituals, something an adult cannot avoid. It keeps him alive on most days, and functioning on the rest. 

A soft knock sounds at his door. It echoes.

Reiji puts the cup down and sighs, head in his hands. Time runs on in the background, but he knows it cannot be time yet. It is too early for meetings.

“Come in,” he says, stony-faced. He has time, but not enough for it to be wasted.

He barely sees the door slip open, as a small shape creeps in, little hands shaking as they push it open. The figure is weak. He peers at it, seeing it struggle, brittle form trembling at the mere effort of forcing it open.

“Reira,” he says.

The boy does not say anything. His hands are behind his back, sleeves still too long on his arms. His hood is still up. His eyes hide beneath. Reiji wonders how he can see, but does not question the child - Reira would not answer, he knows. Reira would let out only a squeak, and fret at the thought of displeasing even his brother.

Small footsteps ring through the room, his walk as awkward as his arms, still stuck behind him as if they had been glued. 

He hears a soft shove; something is pushed, gently so, onto the desk. He looks on. Reira is still there, eyes wide like the bear he usually clings to, hands squeezing together as Reiji’s gaze meets his. His little fists clench; Reiji’s instincts tell him to reach and give him some comfort, but he does not. He cannot. It is not the time.

“What is it?” He asks him instead, throwing only a brief glance to the object. It is a box, plain and uncovered.

Reira flinches, shaking in silence.

“It’s for you, brother.” His voice is not much more than a whisper. His hands shake as he brings them back to his sides, where they stay, as if glued. Reira’s whole body is statue-stiff.

He cannot help but feel just as empty inside when he sees Reira like this. Reira’s eyes are still large, like saucers; his hands are still small, the tender bones beneath skin not quite formed yet. Where his shorts do not reach - and it haunts him, realising how small Reira is for how old he is - he can see his knees, awkwardly knocking against one another. He wonders who dressed him. It’s an odd time for shorts and socks, when even he is cold in a sweater.

_Not Mother_ , he thinks. _Not Mother, wherever she is right now._

Sometimes, he thinks that she may as well be a stranger.

The world - his world, he thinks, is no more than a series of strangers. They look to him, seeing an adult - and an adult he is. He has meetings and signings and conferences and formal events. Dinner at the same table as his mother is yet another debriefing, Reira the eternal observer at the other end of the dining room with his wide eyes and shaky, weak hands that pick apart whatever lies on his plate.

Sometimes, nothing is eaten. Reiji goes on with his life.

He is an adult. He does not need anything else.

It is only when Reira has left the room that he looks back at the calendar, more than a moment too late. He is a fool; he knows that he has been, but nothing more can be said. More than just time has slipped out of his hands. An empty man peers at him from the mirror. The coffee has cooled on the table.

The calendar hangs, unmarked and idle. He is an adult. He knows that; even if the calendar tells him those lies, he is a man, and an adult, and has been one for a long time, since the day that his father left and his mother's eyes turned stone-cold against him, and since Reira came in and made him the older one.

He is an adult, but the calendar cannot change, and it cannot lie. It tells him that he has forgotten.

Today is his sixteenth birthday.


End file.
